1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an electronic scale printer, and more particularly a printer in which the printer is connected electrically to an electronic scale used in a department store or supermarket etc. and the desired data are printed in a printing sheet which is issued under an instruction from the electronic scale.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the conventional type of an electronic scale printer used in a store such as supermarket, the unit has been applied for direct face-to-face selling between the customer and the store personnel and in one case that the receipt should be issued and in the other case that the label should be issued in accordance with the object of use of the unit.
However, the conventional type of the printer may be classified into two types: a label printer and a receipt printer for use in printing the desired printing mode on the desired printing sheet, that is, the weight of the article is weighed by an electronic scale, the price of the article is calculated in reference to the result of weighing and the unit price (price per unit weight), either one of the label or the receipt is issued in view of the result of calculation.
Although the two units have similar functions, a manufacturer should prepare two types of printers only due to the fact that they have different objects to be printed, resulting in that they are quite inefficient in their operation.
Also, the customer should replace the electronic scale itself or the printer causing an inconvenient practice when he desires to replace the receipt printer already in use with the label printer when, for example, the size of the store was expanded. Further, for example, when a daily totalization is to be performed with the label printer, a separate exclusive totalization printer should be connected or the roll of used label sheets should be removed upon completion of the daily work to replace it with the roll of receipt sheets and to print out the accumulated data, resulting in a troublesome operation. Resetting the roll of label sheets upon printing-out of the accumulated data caused an issuing of useless labels, resulting in an uneconomical practice.
Since the printer was quite thin in view of its function and design, it was hard to perform a replacement of a roll of printing sheets upon completion of the roll of the printing sheets. Therefore, if the roll was completely used during meeting with a consumer, the store personnel must keep the consumer waiting for the replacement of the roll.
A way of displaying in the label to be attached to an item packed is defined under a rule of the Food Sanitation Act or the Food Fair Competition Rule etc. and the character of item name to be printed on the label is defined more than the desired size. In turn, the character of item name to be printed on the receipt (usually Japanese KANA character) is quite small in a usual ECR (electronic register) due to complicated printing item data or a sheet width of the printing sheets to be used. Thus, in the above-mentioned printer are applied characters in reference to the size of the sheet width. FIG. 39(a) shows one example of a label and (b) illustrates one example of a receipt. As shown in the figure, the item name character N1 in the label is substantially larger than the item name character N2 in the receipt normally used, and therefore it is practically impossible to issue the receipt having the characters for a label or to issue the label having the characters for a receipt. In the conventional type of the printer, only one kind of item name was defined in correspondence with one item and thus it was impossible to issue both a label and a receipt.